“I am waiting…

“How much longer…

“Still waiting…”

s.h.i.+ra opens his eyes abruptly. The echoes of an old and deep voice speaking inside his dream still lingering within his mind.

The youth knows since long ago that he was different from everybody. The absence of his parents’ care was hard enough for the younger s.h.i.+ra, led him feeling hopeless and struck with mild depression.

“People said a sad and tortured child was able to see some supernatural being,” he muttered under his breath. “Now I’m not depressed anymore. But why spirits keep haunting me for ages now?”

He was complaining to n.o.body. Yet, a rough and dissatisfied voice suddenly sneers at him.

“I just came here for one year. Don’t bulls.h.i.+t me with that complaining of yours,” the roguish looking spirit appears before him.

“Ol’ Good-Natured Spirit, I’m not talking about you,” s.h.i.+ra said. “There’s some old voices haunting my dreams since I was four years old. Maybe younger.”

“Ohh yeeaaaah?” the spirit whom s.h.i.+ra calls as Good-Natured Spirit deeply furrowed his brows, looking back at the youth suspiciously. Then, he softens his tone and spoke slowly, “kinda interesting. Hmmm. Did you want to chat about it?”

s.h.i.+ra didn’t answer. “Time for supper,” then he walks home downward from the hill.

The spirit fell silent. His eyes locking the back of the youth with serious blaze flickering on his pupils. He was infuriated at the thought of old voice s.h.i.+ra was talking about.

“Who the friggin’ f.u.c.k trying to scheme for my prey right now?”

s.h.i.+ra Yashura comes back every time he needs to eat, then go elsewhere to retreat to his own solitude. Whether he went to the hill or lock himself inside the family’s library. There is almost nothing going on in his life.

His older female cousin, Mila Yashura, always scolds him and talks for hours about discipline and social life and planning ahead and the like.

“Where are you going?” Mila Yashura stopped him from leaving dinner room.

“Library,” s.h.i.+ra answered with carefree manner.

“There’s nothing for you to do at the library!”

“Reading?”

“That’s not what I mean!” Mila pouted while putting her hands on the hips.

“Mila, just let him go,” Mila’s father, Patriarch Shuro Yashura who still smoking his pipe on dinner table said to her.

Mila couldn’t rebuke at his own father’s words. Then, she said something to s.h.i.+ra with a warning and sharp tone, “remember what day is tomorrow. Don’t disappear all day like a ghost!”

“Don’t worry. Those people come to see me, I will not run,” s.h.i.+ra a.s.sured with the usual leisure tone of his, then proceeds slowly toward the library.

In Malikh Family Household.

Folks inside the room were worried about the wounds on Bhela’s snow-white hand. Her mother spends quite a bit of silver coins to buy healing potions, which more than half of them were types of painkiller potion. She didn’t like the thought of her own daughter having an insomnia episode because of the pain from her fingers.

A middle-aged servant knocks the door thrice before asking for permission to enter the room.

“Elders brought some beautiful clothes for Young Lady Bhela to wears tomorrow.”

“We understand. You may leave,” said the mother with a flat tone.

Pair of mother and daughter looked the bright red silk-dress before them coldly. It was designed so vulgarly and provoking that the mother felt chill thinking her daughter would wear this at public places.

“For Elders to be so generous, how rare,” Bhela muttered and shaking her head grudgingly.

“You don’t have to wear this.” her mother said helplessly.

“I must,” they don’t have a choice. “Mother, I want to see Father.”

“Mmm.”

The two female silhouette leaves the room. They visited the bedridden father who fallen in deep ill since two years ago.

“Father…” Bhela appears outside the open door. Sadness flooding her chest seeing the shrunken middle-aged figure lying weakly on the bed.

The day after that, s.h.i.+ra didn’t go to the hill like he usually did. In his small, tidy room, he sat together with the self-acclaimed Good-Natured Spirit. A board of chess was laid between them. From the looks of it, s.h.i.+ra clearly lost.

“How easy. This is like I’m playing with that dumb old Gazuna back then,” Good-Natured Spirit laughed out loud as he made his last move, taking the king on s.h.i.+ra’s side. He was elated to be able to totally crush the usually cunning youth’s strategy with an iron fist.

“Let’s stop,” s.h.i.+ra stood up and leave his room. The spirit silently penetrates the wall, followed behind.

“Did you complete that scroll I told you ages ago brat?” Good-Natured Spirit asked all of the sudden.

“I don’t have time for that.”

“It was a heavenly fortuitous encounter that you able to hold such a treasure. Now you said ignorantly you don’t have a time for that. Say, had your brain went away on a vacation?” the spirit rebuked. “Besides, all this time all you had was sleeping the entire day.”

“I’ll look at it after this—” s.h.i.+ra abruptly closes his mouth as he walks past an old butler.

“Young Master s.h.i.+ra,” the butler greets with his back slowly bowed.

s.h.i.+ra nod at him, addresses back. “Yulong.”

“Young Lady Mila was asking for you before. Maybe Young Master should meet her. She looks angry.”

“Noted. Thank you.”

Then the old butler bows slightly and left. The Good-Natured Spirit gave b.u.t.tler Yulong his middle finger as he went away, which the Old b.u.t.tler Yulong seemed to takes no notice of.

“That middle finger gesture, is that an insult?” asked s.h.i.+ra with his brows furrowed.

“Hehe. That old man sure was a dimwit.”

“Please refrain making fun Yulong every time you meet him, Ol’ Good-Natured Spirit. He was good to me. In the first place, why did you only pick on the old Butler Yulong?”

“Not telling. Not telling,” the roguish spirit shook his head with a wide playful grin on his face.

s.h.i.+ra didn’t chase it further. “Anyway, what was I said before is; I’ll look that scroll you gave me after this business with Malikh Family done.”

Good-Natured Spirit didn’t speak. But s.h.i.+ra could tell from his smug grin that the strange spirit was satisfied with himself.

Yashura Family was busy preparing for a banquet in their s.p.a.cious courtyard. Everyone knew Malikh Family would visit their family today. The rumored Cold Princess, whom every young man adored, would show herself too. It was known the purpose of their visit was to talk about the engagement Jhuro Yashura and Patriarch Ghalim Malikh set fifteen years ago.

It could be considered a big event in Badril Village. So everyone would come to take a look, which put the host’s reputation at the stakes. Naturally, a lot of people on Yashura Family were nervous about it.

“s.h.i.+ra, s.h.i.+ra! Quick! Put this awesome-looking sword on your belt!” insisted Mila.

s.h.i.+ra can only smile wryly at his older cousin’s act. “This is too heavy for me to carry around. Let’s swap for other swords. To think about it, it’s better for me to not wear a strange accessory.”

“This is not accessories! This is an expensive magic weapon that can make you look imposing in front of your future wife!”

“I am only a Novice with lousy Level 3 power. It would take years for me to improve my Strength attribute so I can use this kind of items properly.”

Mila Yashura stomping ground with her foot. Looked all fierce. She didn’t like how her younger cousin trying to argue with her. “It was your fault from the start! All you doing was eating sleeping then eating again then when it was the time to practice your Mana Sphere, you read old strange history books instead! Naturally your unspent attribute points from leveling up to Level 3 all went away to that weak-a.s.s Wisdom attribute! If you still act like this you will be forever loser! Do you… do you have any common sense of a warrior at all?”

“I’m not trying to be a warrior,” said s.h.i.+ra helplessly.

Mila was pouting. “Let me see your Status then!”

The youth can’t brushed-off his older cousin whenever she enters lioness mode. He still quite values his poor little life.

Mila had just obtained her Cla.s.s months ago. She was a Specialist, a support-type warrior which dealt with information. So it was easy for her utilizing mana that can read s.h.i.+ra’s power.

“Now look… if your status was a mess… then…”

Both of them wait patiently as Mila’s magic skill formed slowly, full of antic.i.p.ation.

Last time s.h.i.+ra’s Status was checked was one year ago. Back then he just promoted to Level 3 Novice. So right now, he was curious about his Status growth too.

Soon the mild glowing light forms an ethereal piece a paper. Mila’s skill magic was done.

Their eyes narrowed. Reading silently at the Status’ information.

s.h.i.+ra’s face turned white. It was worse than he thought.

He nervously cast a look at the young woman beside him. Mila smiled. Then without a word, she grabbed a broom and starts to beat the c.r.a.p out of him.

“Mercy!” s.h.i.+ra yelled with a pained voice. But Mila’s broom swing get harder instead. He starts to evade, yet the only door was blocked by his cousin Mila. Feeling helpless, he slips agilely from the fierce attacks and escaped the room through the open window.

Mila can only recede her anger because there’s nothing for her to vents to. The young woman sits on the chair, grudgingly stares at the magical paper he created before.

“Strange…” she muttered. “His Strength and other combat attributes were super lame, but why his Dodge rate chance so high?”

Middle-aged Patriarch enters the room.

“Where’s s.h.i.+ra?” he asked the confused daughter. “Pack of elixirs his father sent home arrived.”

“He’s gone,” Mila Yashura raises her brows as she answered his father.

Patriarch Shuro had come to gives a package to his lazy nephew.

Usually, Shuro Yashura always shoves the elixirs his younger brother sent to s.h.i.+ra right away. Expensive elixirs which Jhuro Yashura sent, were the only reason s.h.i.+ra had reached Level 3 Novice like today.

“Father, look at this. Did my Specialist ‘Status Window’ went wrong?”

“What’s happen? Hmm? Let me take a look then.”

When he reads the magical paper, Patriarch Shuro’s face turned serious.

“No, your ‘Status Window’ was right, alright… we just don’t know what s.h.i.+ra doing when he was alone on the hill.”

There was a hint of worry upon Mila Yashura’s eyes. “Is this a good thing? Or a bad thing?”

Her father shook his head. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, I have a premonition that this would be a hope for the child.”

s.h.i.+ra walks cooly when he looked back and saw no one chases him. Putting his hands in his pockets. He pa.s.ses a lot of people from the main family and the branch family. Yet he walks like a stranger. There were only a few people who actually recognize him. The youth was rarely seen at the public, so not many knew what he looked like.

But for those who saw him before, their eyes grew curious.

Malikh Family would come for him. Yet, people were bound to wonder. Asking questions, like, how will this legendary s.h.i.+tty-talented young master behave later?